This entry's gonna go on forever...

It was one of those days where I can't help but feel like an idiot.

Here's the setup: Once upon a time, our cops reporter had a baby and wanted to go part-time, which meant that she came into work twice a week and the rest of the time did the cop calls from home. This meant that the rest of the week, SOMEONE (i.e. editorial assistant, the only one who has to be in early in the morning and isn't laying out pages in a frantic rush the entire time) had to go pick up the police reports and fax them to her. This was pretty easy, as the police station was located across the street from us. However, they got a new police station, and moved it out to East Bumfuck, right before I took over the position. And as you know, I don't drive.

So here's how my morning commute normally goes on those days:

6:45 a.m. Leave home and walk to nearest A line bus stop. Arrive there 6:55 a.m. just to make sure I'm on time.

7-7:05 p.m.: Wait for A line bus. Not as simple as it sounds, because A line is the last of FIVE busses to pass by the stop. First there's the "not in service" bus, which, since my vision's not the bestest on text at far distances, used to prompt me to frantically wave at said bus while it ignored me. Then there's the bus going in the other direction. Then comes the Yolobus to Sac, which does actually stop at my stop, and the E line bus, which does the same. This forces me to frantically wave my hands and shake my head and mouth "No, no, no" at the drivers over and over again while they try to stop for me. I've started actually walking AWAY from the stop when they come so as to not force them to stop for me, but the other day one did anyway. Sigh. After THAT, mine will show up. Ten-minute ride.

7:10: Get dropped off at police station, pick up papers. Then hike along the loooooong street to work. It's actually about a 20 minute walk barring traffic lights, so that's not bad, and I generally don't mind walking so long as it doesn't take me longer than a half hour to get there (I grew up living way too far out on the fringes of town to walk anywhere). Walking is a small price to pay to not kill anyone, you know?

7:35: Arrive at work.

But let's face it, taking fifty minutes out of the morning to do this three times a week is kinda frustrating and tiring when compared to my normal 10-minute commute on the days I don�t have to do it. And every time I have to do it, it reminds me that yes, I am an idiot, and it would take me a mere half hour to take care of in the morning if I could just frigging drive. Any moron can drive a car, why can't I?

Today, however, emphasized it even more:

(1) Because the cops reporter (who, by the way, is a lovely, hilarious person and I don't mean to dis her in any way- this is my own personal griping) worked this weekend, she decided to not come in today. Ergo, I was stuck (a) doing it on a Monday when I normally don't do them, and (b) stuck having to do it almost the entire damn week now. I found out I had to do this late Friday afternoon and almost forgot about it.

(2) I looked on the weather.com page and it predicted heavy rain for today. Oh goody goody. The last time it was heavily raining I had to do pickup that day, and I was thoroughly drenched for hours. So I plan the wardrobe around my weather, check the Doppler map and see that no rain is supposed to come swooping over us right away, so I cross my fingers and hope the rain won't hit until I'm at work. Can't it just wait until eight?

(3) I go out to wait for the bus. As I leave, I idly wonder why my roommate hasn't gone to work and is apparently sleeping in (she goes to work earlier than I do). I stand around and wait until seven, when it finally occurs to me: she's home because there is no school today. Not for public school, and not at UCD, either. (Note they never had that day off when I was still in college!) Which meant... no busses run today! CRAP!

(4) So I start the loooong hike out. If you start from downtown it's even longer to get out there, 30 minutes, so I totally kick myself the whole way there and back about how stupid I am for not checking these things and how late I'm going to be to work now and how if I could just frigging drive this wouldn't have happened.

(5) Did I miss the rain? Of course not. I believe in Murphy's Law above all else because it's so damn accurate. The drops started falling when I was about 5/6 of the way to the station, and really started the downpour when I was about 2/3 of the way there. But at least I didn't enter the office totally drenched this time. If I�d been any later I would have drowned in the parking lot.

I walk in, headphones blaring away, and see that my boss has the TV on, and I see headline "All flights in NYC canceled, plane crash." And it was amazing how...blase I was about this. Literally, my reaction was "Oh, great, another one." But I didn't take off the headphones, I didn't gape at the TV, I just calmly walked over to the fax machine. It's become commonplace to me now to see disaster on the television. How frightening is that? Maybe I was just so self-centered in my whole "@#%^#$@, I forgot it was a holiday and I had to hike for 50 minutes" bitchiness that I didn't even really notice. At any rate, it didn't really hit me until I heard it crashed in NY, and saw the visuals on CNN. *sigh*

3WA's Jessica said: "I feel like I woke up in a rerun." Ain't the the truth. I'm of course hoping it was just a rotten coincidental accident, and so far the news is going in that direction, but man, the hits just keep on coming to New York. I commented to someone at work that now NOBODY's going to want to fly, and I don't even think they should. She agreed and said they'd just drive to visit her family in Arizona. I'm lucky I hardly ever fly anywhere. But even if it's a coincidence that the crash happened, the flight industry's just going to TANK now. We can't deal with this.

Ironically, I was chatting with a friend online yesterday (who, like the roommate, is also employed by a school and thus does not have to work) who said �well, hopefully there won�t be any news on a holiday.� Hah. Man, I�m not in the mood to write about another drastic depressing thing in the world. But you can�t NOT write about it in a way, can you? Oh well, I'll try to move on from here.

One of the editors suggested to my boss that we do an article on trying to send presents overseas-- basically, she�d found out from someone that it�s taking so long for them to get there that it�s already too late to send them Christmas presents. How sad is that? But even in this country I�m wondering if it�s too late. I ordered my dad�s birthday present off Amazon (dad�s b-day was Nov. 1) about a week before the date, not really worrying about the timing because the parents were going to San Diego for the week and I probably wouldn�t be able to give him presents in person until Thanksgiving anyway. It STILL hasn�t come yet. I usually get packages kind of late anyway because I pay by check, but it took them two weeks to let me know they�d gotten the check, and they STILL haven�t notified me that they�ve ever shipped the package yet.

Continuing the theme of holiday stories, I got the okay from one of the editors to do some reviews of holiday stuff- my suggestions being books, insane music and (if I can find them being sold in this town) advent calendars. I�m hoping enough merchandise�ll be out here before the due date of Dec. 5, and that I�ll be able to find my personal favorites for review around here. Yes, I heart Dr. Elmo and �Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer� is my favorite Christmas song (that and Rudolph. I have a theme.) Maybe I�ll get lucky and actually find books/music on the non-Christmas holidays...*cough*yeahright*cough* I went to one store this afternoon and picked up "Mr. Hankey's Christmas Classics."

The novel is going slightly better, as I had an inspirational moment last night as to how to finish off the dreaded karaoke scene. I still need to come up with some way to force my heroine and the dreaded ex to deal with each other in person on a more regular basis, though, specifically something that The Other Side can set up. We�ll see how I do later on if I ever stop writing this entry. Yet I keep finding things to comment on on the net. Like this. I really think someone'll kill me for that one. But it had to be said.

Anyway... I was bummed to find out that WriterGirl's on hiatus. Basically she said she quit because she's having more of a social life online than she is in real life, and now things are well, getting ugly *sigh*

I'll admit that yeah, I'm doing that more often than I am socializing with my so-called real life friends myself. Then again, my so-called real life friends either live out of town, don't have cars, or just plain aren't interested in getting together with others (specifically, others that aren't their SO) any more. I hang out with work friends and the roommate a good deal, and the best friend and I write back and forth, and I'm working on the new social scene thing, but it goes slowly. And in the meantime, I honestly don't see the harm in having fun online with people. These days, people who I've never met in person and probably never will seem to care about me more and say nice things to me than the folks I've known for years and live in the same town as. Which is pathetic, I know. No wonder I'm having less friends that are my own age or younger than I used to.

Anyway, I don't think it's a problem for me. Yet, at least.

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